Spring time means allergy season

With a harsh spring allergy season forecast as early as March, Claritin has charged out of the gate over its rivals with the highest advertising awareness and purchase consideration levels.

Releasing a raft of new TV spots focusing on outdoor activities, promoting everything from their non-drowsy formula and children’s version to their Claritin-D with decongestant, Claritin’s ad awareness nearly doubled from 17% of all Americans to nearly 28% over the most recent eight weeks.

That move has been accompanied by a similar increase in purchase consideration – YouGov BrandIndex’s key potential sales metric. Claritin began the year in second place behind Sudafed, but by mid-March had caught up to its rival and has now surpassed Sudafed. More than 16% of US consumers 18+ say they would consider purchasing Claritin vs. just under 15% for Sudafed.

Sudafed began its own ascent two weeks ago, rising from 12% to its current 14%, putting it right behind Claritin. Those gains have been achieved despite much lower levels of ad awareness. Just 6% of consumers say they have seen recent advertising from the brand, putting in near the bottom of the competitive set just above Alavert.

Both Zyrtec and Allegra made substantial increases in their ad awareness throughout the spring up to the high teen percentages, a distant second to only Claritin. As a likely reflection, the brands enjoyed proportionate gains in purchase consideration since early April.

Alavert is the laggard in the group. It has not budged in either ad awareness or purchase consideration through the year so far, putting them in last place in the category in these two consumer perception metrics.

Alavert, Allegra, Claritin, Sudafed, and Zyrtec were measured with two of YouGov BrandIndex’s scores: Ad Awareness (“Which of the following brands have you seen an advertisement for in the past two weeks?”) and Purchase Consideration (“When you are next in the market to purchase products in this category, from which of the following would you consider purchasing?”). All respondents are adults age 18 and over.

Ad Awareness and Purchase Consideration scores are expressed as percentages, with a range of zero to 100%.